RSC announces new video game inspired by Macbeth

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has announced a collaboration with New York-based game studio iNK Stories to create a new video game, Lili.

Set in contemporary Iran, the game features Cannes Best Actress winner Zar Amir as Lady Macbeth. This marks the RSC’s first venture into video gaming, with the game co-produced by Zar’s Paris-based Alambic Production.

Lili is a screen life thriller that allows players to access Lady Macbeth’s personal devices, blending live-action cinema with interactive gameplay. The game immerses players in a stylised, neo-noir vision of modern Iran, where surveillance and authoritarianism are prevalent. Players will make choices that influence Lady Macbeth’s destiny, with Macbeth’s witches reimagined as hackers.

Vassiliki Khonsari, co-founder of iNK Stories, described the partnership as a landmark collaboration that pushes the boundaries of storytelling, adding: “A video game based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a thrilling endeavour that transforms one of literature’s darkest and most compelling tales – of gender, ambition, fate, power, and morality into an immersive, interactive experience.”

RSC co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey commented: “From its first performance, Macbeth was always exhilarating: its sudden opening with thunder and lightning raises audience adrenaline levels and propels them as participants, not just spectators, into the jittery, action-driven narrative. Lili creates similar effects for audiences. As a storytelling medium, gaming today is what theatre has always been; a chance to explore worlds, inhabit story, and experience something at once personal and communal.”

Lili is in development and is expected to be released in 2025 across gaming platforms. This collaboration builds on iNK’s previous success with the game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, which received numerous industry honors.